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Six Flags Offers Bid to Purchase Cedar Fair

This is awful. Absolutely awful. Cedar Point made a facebook post yesterday and it's filled with comments asking for the proposed acquisition to not happen. At least it made me laugh while being depressed about the possibility of it happening.
 
If this goes through it absolutely will be remembered as THE turning point in American coaster history (for the worse, obviously). Let's just pray it doesn't come to fruition.

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I'm sure it won't be as terrible as people predict if it happens! Think about it this way; some of Cedar Fair's smaller parks might get a little more TLC under Six Flags, what with their pledge to build something new in every park every year! Also, Six Flags does not necessarily always invest in budget rides; I'm sure Jersey Devil will not have been a cheap investment, and the same goes for Maxx Force and West Coast Racers!

Besides, there would hardly be a lack of competition; there are quite a few prominent independent theme parks in America! SeaWorld are also experiencing a resurgence and are mounting up to be quite a credible competitor in some states!

However, I must admit that this would be a somewhat strange move for a company who went bankrupt 9 years ago due to over-expansion to make...
 
Antinos said:
In addition to this alleged move, Six Flags also reacquired Darien Lake and Frontier City, and also acquired three water parks.
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Six Flags doesn't own Darien Lake, Frontier City or the three water parks though, they merely acquired the license to operate them on a lease.
 
cookie said:
Six Flags doesn't own Darien Lake, Frontier City or the three water parks though, they merely acquired the license to operate them on a lease.
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Semantics. Whatever their setup is, it still involves money coming out of their bank account, which is the entire point of the post. They're spending money on parks regardless of whether they're leasing the operating rights or outright owning them.
 
Matt N said:
Also, Six Flags does not necessarily always invest in budget rides; I'm sure Jersey Devil will not have been a cheap investment, and the same goes for Maxx Force and West Coast Racers!
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Compared to the likes of Yukon Striker, Orion or the refurbishment of Mean Streak into Steel Vengeance, those coasters are definitely low-budget options. When Cedar Fair invests in their flagship parks, they do so with gusto. On a park-by-park average, Six Flags might spend as much as Cedar Fair on new rides in a given year, but in Six Flags' case that means building ten mediocre rides instead of three awesome ones. And it's the latter type that tends to get enthusiasts enthusiastic. Six Flags making investments in parks Cedar Fair neglected wouldn't be likely to result in something worth crossing the country for. There would be lots of cloned rides, all either named Goliath or something from the DC Comics universe.
 
Matt N said:
I'm sure it won't be as terrible as people predict if it happens!
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Please visit a Six Flags park then attempt to say that same sentence.

I don't see this happening, at least not a complete buyout or full on merge. But yeah, it would suck.

Aside from the fact that their parks are generally nicer than Six Flags parks, Cedar Fair actually have good operations, staff, and investment plans. Trying to do a run through Cedar Point under Six Flags management would be a nightmare.
 
Pokemaniac said:
Compared to the likes of Yukon Striker, Orion or the refurbishment of Mean Streak into Steel Vengeance, those coasters are definitely low-budget options. When Cedar Fair invests in their flagship parks, they do so with gusto. On a park-by-park average, Six Flags might spend as much as Cedar Fair on new rides in a given year, but in Six Flags' case that means building ten mediocre rides instead of three awesome ones. And it's the latter type that tends to get enthusiasts enthusiastic. Six Flags making investments in parks Cedar Fair neglected wouldn't be likely to result in something worth crossing the country for. There would be lots of cloned rides, all either named Goliath or something from the DC Comics universe.
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^^What he said...plus...they favor fair rides bolted in concrete as a new ride. That, and the "Exclusive Fight Time" that happens at Six Flags parks, one train operations, $16.00 corn dogs, and...well. You get the picture.
 
Personally, it’s not that I don’t like Six Flags, considering I did four of their parks this year and enjoyed myself to some extent. However, I do think that their investment strategies are vastly different and might not be beneficial to some of the smaller parks. Cedar Fair goes tall, giving most parks something small with one or two single major investments being made at select large properties, while Six Flags goes wide and gives all of their parks something small. Getting back to back Larson loops, free spins, and the like year after year would be great for parks like Michigan’s Adventure and Dorney, but even their bigger investments like Maxx Force and Wonder Woman seem to be capacity challenges at their Six Flags parks so I’m not sure how well that would fare at Cedar Point or Knott’s, where you’re basically forced to invest in something nice for it to succeed. Both parks obviously pay attention to the size of the investment verses the size of the park, hence why West Coast Racers didn’t go to Six Flags St. Louis or why the lone Cedar Fair Larson Loop went to Valleyfair and not Canada’s Wonderland.

I’m not educated in business at all so I might be missing crucial information in forming this opinion, but to take the best way this could work out would be Cedar Fair selling all their parks that aren’t CP, KBF, or Paramount to Six Flags. Valleyfair is a great park and I could see them becoming a top tier Six Flags property, same goes with Dorney. Most of those smaller parks make less than 5% of their revenue each so I could see them fetching a pretty penny for them. But with how much Kings Island, Cedar Point, and Canada’s Wonderland make, it would be stupid to sell them. But to be honest, I doubt any of it would happen. There’s too many problems that have already been brought up and some might even result in self competition to an extent.

Interested to see how it pans out, though I expect it to be a false alarm and everyone goes back to whining about Orion in a week.
 
You really got to give credit to Jim Reid and everyone else though. The additions over the past ___ years, maybe have not been as impressive as Cedar Fair, but whoa boy did they turn the company around financially!

And those RMC's are expensive. Congrats to Six Flags, once again, for popularizing the company and bringing a new product to the market. Let's not forget the introduction of the first air launch coaster in a while, and the host of other improvements. I really think they've done good, hopefully this denial from Cedar Fair and their financial success will bring about some more solid investments, they can't rely on the old monoliths like Kingda Ka forever.

But again let's be fair, those RMC's are the same price as a full size B&M so you really got to give them that, I mean, yeah.


I think the strategies been brilliant. Enough solid investments and innovative with RMCs and a few S&S or Premier, mega awesome flat rides like Discoveries and Freespins, now we're way back in business and it's time to invest in the world's tallest, fastest, 500+ foot Intamin! :D
 
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